Week 44: Au Naturale

This week I decided to try and work with more "natural" materials; stone, shell, pearls and the like.  In do very much enjoy working with all types of materials but I noticed recently that I had fallen into a "polished gemstones and metal" rut.  So I challenged myself to come out of it, and here are the results:

Earrings with shell and freshwater stick pearl dangles.  I've had the shell dangles forever, and I'm so glad I finally got a chance to use them!

Wire wrapped natural stone and fancy jasper arrowhead.  The base arrowhead was a gift from my aunt, the fancy  jasper one on top was purchased at Fire Mountain.

Copper wire wrapped driftwood necklace.  I'm really happy with how this turned out, and can't wait to start using more driftwood in my designs!

Lake stone wire wrapped in steel on leather, with hand-wrapped steel beads.  Making wire wrapped beads was super fun, and I'm sure I'll be incorporating more of those into my future designs.

Shell and freshwater pearl dangle earrings.  I love the iridescence of the black coin pearls! 

Matte-finished stone stick necklace, in rainbow of course!  I'm falling in love with matte finishes on stones; it really does make them feel more raw and natural.

Empty watch face turned into a pendant!  I filled it up with this cool box of old animal teeth I had (don't ask...) and some text from an old book.    Then I added some raw quartz point dangles.  I'm sorry for the picture quality; for some reason this bad boy was really difficult to photograph!

It was really nice to get back to working with elements that had a more natural feel.  All in all I feel like the natural elements give the designs a softer feel, which is nice.  Thanks for checking us out this week, and I'll catch you next time!

Week 43: Copper Bonanza!

Copper is pretty much my favorite metal to work with.  I really love the warmth of the color, and I love the way it acquires a patina over time.  Antiqued or natural, I'm a fan.  So I decided to indulge myself this week and use copper in all my designs.

Moss Quartz bead on copper paddle pin with spiral wire wrap.  That's a heckuva sentence. 

Multi tiered copper chain choker.

Embossed copper disc earrings.  I love my Big Kick!  Embossing metal is so much fun, and it's a great way to add texture to your designs.

Labradorite and garnet on antiqued copper eyepins and chain.  Simple, but  fun!

I found this cool copper disc at Michael's, and I knew it had to be a necklace for me!    So  I added some dusky purple crystal beads with segments of chain in between.  I have a feeling this is going to be one of those necklaces I wear the heck out of.

Copper plated aspen leaf earrings with fancy jasper accent beads.

And last but not least, this wire wrapped black agate donut pendant!  I used a piece of scrap metal that I had cut a disc out of as the base, then hammered it and punched holes for adding wire.  I like that you can see through the donut.

I know "copper" isn't all that much of a theme, or even a new theme (it was my first!) but the longer this project goes on I find that I'm more motivated by doing what makes me happy than trying to experiment every single week.  Still, I do hope to have at least a few new themes over the remaining weeks.  We'll see.  : )

Week 42: Chip Off the Ol' Block

It's no lie, I have a king's ransom in stone chips I've collected over the years.  A small country's king for sure, but a king nonetheless.  I don't really use them so much as I collect them, and I decided that it was time to put the collection to good use and actually make something.  Thus, here are seven stone chip jewelry designs!

Sodalite and quartz crystal necklace on leather.  I'm glad I finally found a use for those giant bead cones!

Wire cage (with ammonia and salt patina) filled with raw aquamarine chips.

Russian Amazonite and Amber wire wrapped square earrings

Tiger eye on turquoise leather teardrop earrings

Amethyst, peridot, citrine, and garnet chip bracelet.  Hurray for memory wire!

Chakra chip earrings.  Garnet, carnelian, citrine, moss agate, sodalite, amethyst and quartz crystal.

Two strand amber and rainbow obsidian chip necklace.

 This didn't even begin to put a dent in my stash, but at least it's a start!

Week 41: Dapper Wrapper

I've been wire wrapping again!  When in doubt or too busy to plan out a neat theme for the week, wire wrapping is always a good fall back.  It's my favorite type of jewelry crafting and I'm always behind on making designs that I've sketched out.  So here are seven that went from paper to reality!

Serpentine and Lapis abstract wire wrapped pendant.

Shaded wire wrapped earrings.  I went from Iolite, to Amethyst, to Lemon Quartz, to Crystal  Quartz.  These guys are super fun and sparkly!

Wire wrapped agate and crystal pendant.  I hammered the spirals to give them additional texture, and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Mosaic-style wire wrapped pendant.  I'm particular fond of this style!  I have so many cute, tiny, semi-precious beads that could be used in this way.  Stone list goes: Rainbow Moonstone, Garnet, Quartz Crystal, Peridot, Labaradorite, White Moonstone, Chrysoprase, Amethyst, Smoky Quartz, Apatite, Rose Quartz, and Emerald Green Adventurine.

Wire wrapped copper tube earrings. I added bits of text tape (Tim Holtz!  Which I always say like "Steve Holt!") to the copper tubing, then wire wrapped it and added seed bead accents.  Then, I added the key charms so the bottoms didn't look so naked.  An empty loop is a sad loop.

Wire wrapped amethyst pendant.  I don't know where this design came from, but  I enjoyed making use of the negative space in the middle of the pendant.  I don't usually leave open spaces in my work, and it was nice to try and incorporate space into one of my designs.  Even if it felt really weird, like I had somehow left the piece unfinished.

Hammered brass washer earrings with copper spirals! Again, making matching spirals is REALLY HARD.  The good news is that making spirals is pretty easy, so it balances out.

Just a few more days until the end of January!  I'll be back at least entertaining the idea of doing different themes soon.  : )  Thanks for sticking with me, and I'll catch you next time!

Week 39: Shooting Gallery

Sorry to be short this week, but work is exploding all over the place!  I kept the bullet theme going from last week as I still had some designs rattling around in my head, and well... here they are!

Shot gun shell pendant!  I had a fun time sawing off the plastic part of the shell to get just the cool "top" piece.  There's got to be a better way to do that, but so far the internet has been no help.  : )

Crystal tipped bullet earrings with sheet music.  I'm so glad I got this cool sheet music tape from Michael's!  It's a Tim Holtz product, and it fits these bullet casings perfectly!  If it takes color well, it'll be the perfect accent, and I can guarantee that I'll have a rainbow of these earrings in no time.

Bullet flower pendant on leather!  This bad boy was actually harder to make than I thought it would be.  My tin snips cut the casing just fine, but cutting it did harden the metal significantly   rolling up the ends by hand was a challenge.  Maybe if I ever get around to getting a micro torch I could anneal it, because I really like this design and want to play with it some more but my hands really don't like it at all.

Two, that's right TWO crystal points in a wire wrapped bullet.  Could i be any happier?  Plus I'm excited about the raw crystal accents on the necklace itself.  I rely an awful lot on chain to present a finished pendant, and it's nice when I have a cohesive idea for a full necklace.

Triple bullet wire wrapped pendant.  I wonder which one is jut right?

Bullet casing with stone and bead fringe.  I really had fun making this; putting together the "dangles" let me go through a lot of beads to find the right colors and textures I wanted, and who doesn't love that?

And finally, another "bullet tip" pendant.  I''m so happy I saved the bits I cut off with my pipe cutter.  Just goes to prove that crafting is great for justifying my hoarding instincts!

Well, I'm out of bullet ideas but certainly not bullets; I haven't even made a dent in the five gallon bucket I was gifted awhile back.  But unless I can come up with some relatively unique ideas in the next few days, i think this round of bullet crafting has run its course.  Thanks for stopping by, and I'll catch you next week!

Week 33: Ring Week, Round 2

Before this week's projects, I hadn't tried wire wrapping my own ring shanks in a reaaaaaaaaally long time.  Years, even.  I didn't have a lot of luck the first time I tried, and it really put me off the whole making rings idea.  But this time around I had several more years of wire wrapping experience and an actual ring mandrel to use which helped immeasurably.  While none of the results are perfect, none of them are too bad for what basically amounts to practice pieces.

Traditional "vortex" style wire wrapped ring with a fluorite focal bead..  This was my first attempt at wire wrapping a ring shank, and while the focal piece looks good, the shank itself is kind of wonky.  Lesson learned!  My next experiments improved greatly from learning what went wrong with this piece.

This ring shank was made from a single piece of 16 ga wire, which I then shaped  and added the eyes to.  Then I added an amazonite bead and some bead caps, and used the eyes to secure the focal beads.  This ring was also a learning experience; it is huge!  The next time I make this style of ring I'll be sure to use less wire for the shank so it can actually fit me.  : )

This ring was the beginning of my real experimentation.  I decided to make a ring that had a beaded frame around the focal bead.  The design turned out pretty well, it isn't exactly symmetrical but that's ok for a first try.  When I do end up making this style again I think I'll steer clear of using twisted wire: it's super fancy and adds a very refined look to a piece but it's much harder to work with than regular wire.

About here is where I really started to hit my stride.  I have these cool double drilled coral beads, and I realized that the natural curve in them meant they'd make great additions to a ring.  I went ahead and wrapped the ring shank, then secured the coral bead.  The coral bead looked pretty bare on its own, so I added some wire wrapped lapis, onyx, silver,and turquoise beads to give it some extra embellishment.  The results are quite fancy!

I liked the style of the coral ring so much, I decided to make a bonus project for this week and used the same technique again!  This time I didn't add a focal bead, and simply wire wrapped larger beads in the same style as the embellishing beads on the coral ring.  I used a larger wire gauge to give the ring some stability.  All in all I think this ring is pretty great, and it's an excellent example of how one technique can look amazingly different when you use different materials!  

Once again, I couldn't resist using some of those double terminated quartz crystals that I have.  Instead of doing a vertical wrap like I did last week, I tried wrapping this piece horizontally.  While it's not the fanciest of the rings this week is is my absolute favorite.  I'm going to wear this until it falls apart!

Right about here is where I decided to try and get super fancy .  I wanted to see if I could wire wrap a cabochon onto a ring base.  The answer is yes, but it takes a hell of a lot of time!  I used this cool "spider web" technique where you wrap four wires into a star shape, creating eight prongs.  Those prongs are then used to secure the cab.  Because the back of the ring was so much smaller than the front, I overlapped the prongs and secured them by making spirals so the cab wouldn't fall out.  I think I'll want to try this style again and see if I can find a way to secure the cab without covering quite so much of it up.

Finally, my favorite of the batch! Learning from my cabochon wrapping adventures above, I chose a smaller stone and parcel wrapped it.  I used lots and lots of strands of 26ga wire instead of using just a few in 22 ga wire.  This allowed the stone to shine through, and the ring isn't quite as busy as the one above.  Sadly, it turned out to be a hair too small for me to wear, so I'll have to find it a good home.

Finally, I seem to have gotten over my ring-making hump.  I expect that you'll see more rings before this 52/7 project is over, as I'm way less shy about experimenting now.  Yet one more great thing to come out of making myself make seven things a week.  I'm surprised that after 33 weeks there are still so many projects that I've meant to try and haven't gotten around to yet.  I'm beginning to wonder if I'll need a second year to get through everything I want to do!  : )  I'm sure I'll feel differently when tax season is upon me, but for now I'm all hyped up.  See you next week!

Week 32: Ring Week, Round 1

I love rings.  Well, I love wearing them, anyway.  I haven't really tried making rings before, and I realized that this was a pretty big gap in my jewelry making adventures.  So I went hunting and found seven different types of "ring blanks" to embellish.  This is what I came up with:

  

This ring base was one that had a single eye in the middle of the band.  I think it was for attaching beads on headpins to make one of those cool cluster rings.  But while fiddling around I realized that the eyelet fit perfectly into some flower components that I had.  I domed one of my gears to help it fit into the design, and then stacked them all onto the eyelet, securing them with wire and a sparkly copper bead.

This ring is maybe the most basic of the week.  The ring base for this one was a plain brass band with several different holes in it.  I'm really not sure what it's intended use was, but I used the holes to anchor some wire, then wrapped this cool clock key charm I had onto the base.  Simple, but fun!

I love quartz crystal points.  I came across a bounty of them at the Crystal Connection, a local shop for VA rockhounds.  When I found these filigree ring bases, I just knew I needed to wire wrap a crystal point onto one.  I've had some very cool crystal point rings in the past, but they've all gone out of my life now.  I'm crazy excited to have one again!

I love sprinkles!  And I've wanted to expand my experimentation with resin.  This ring base with a deep bezel seemed to be the perfect opportunity to combine the two.  I used a UV curing resin because it takes so much less time to set than regular resin, but I had issues with teeny tiny little bubbles forming.  By the time they rose to the surface, the resin had already started to set.  I think that UV resin will be great for some projects, but the sprinkles just had too many gaps for air bubbles to hide in.  Still, while not perfect it is perfectly wearable!

This ring began as some sort of fidgety meddling on my part, and quickly became something extra crazy.  The ring base is a neat domed circle with an eye in the middle for attaching beads.  I happened to have big dish of safety pins sitting on my craft table, and started putting them through the eye just to see what it would look like.  A few quickly became several, which became many, which became many many, which became lots.  (Pratchett fan!)  Once I couldn't fit any more onto the base, I started stacking safety pins on top of each other.  I really love the result;  it's so much more sculptural than anything I've done in awhile.

The base for this ring was what most people think of when they think of a standard ring blank, a band with a flat surface for affixing some embellishment.  I've been holding onto these cool etched buttons for a long time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to use them.  I had to file the back of the button flat, but that was the most work I did for this project.  Other than that it was just glue, glue, glue.  Still, the final results are pretty darnn cool.

This ring turned out so much better than I thought it would!  The ring base is pretty funky; it's a standard adjustable band but it has this weird filigree flower type bit on the front for affixing things to.  The flower isn't flat, so I'm not sure what exactly it was intended for, as it doesn't seem to be made to hold glue or anything like that.  I decided to use it to wire wrap as it gave me a pretty solid anchor point.  I had this itty bitty snowflake obsidian donut that I wrapped onto the base, then embellished it with some tiger eye beads and a nice round quartz bead. 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the way that most of the projects turned out, but using pre-made ring bases was limiting.  That's why I've decided that next week I'm going to make seven different rings using my own wire wrapped bases.  I'll see you then!